Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor developed social penetration theory; the theory helps people understand human communication by closeness and self-discloser. The book describes social penetration theory by using the onion metaphor, known as the human personality, which is a multilayered onion. The outer layer of the onion is known as the public self, people’s personalities are rhetorically exchanged easily with people who met someone else immediately for the first time. For example, a persons gender, the way they dress, and occupation. The layer beneath the surfer of the onion is the known as the personal self and attitude. A person may only share information to someone who is closest to him or her such as family and friends. For example,
This semester, one of my classmates Brittany and I were working on a project together. She called me a “spoiled rich girl” because I told her a story about my pool and my pool man. This offended me because I may have grown up in a wealthy town, but I never was a “spoiled rich kid”. I told Brittany I am not a “spoiled rich kid” and she then started to point out all my belongings and started to ask me who bought them. I sank back into my seat and told her my mom. She lifted her head from the computer screen and said, “SEE, you are a spoiled rich kid”. What Brittany did not know about me was my mother is a single mom who raised three children alone. My mom had everything taken away from her, but with support of family and friends she made something of herself. I told Brittany my story, she learned not only about my story, but that I started to work at a very young age. Brittany just stared at me and started to tell me about her life story. I later found out that she has seven siblings and her father passed away at a very young age. She also told me she was once a “spoiled rich kid”, but when her father passed away she lost everything and her family became homeless. After communicating with each other for an hour, both of our perceptions about each other have change. When Brittany was leaving, she told me that she was sorry for judging me
The main focus of this research proposal is to address the study of social psychology and the role it plays in helping one understand human social behavior. In this proposal, one will attempt to explain how the field of social psychology will evolve within the next 10 years. Allport, (1985) maintains that social psychology is the scientific study that seeks to understand the nature of individual’s behavior and how they think, feel, and are influenced by others. To understand the framework of this proposal, one will focus on human social behavior as it relates to research in social psychology.
Beebe, Steven A., Susan J. Beebe, and Mark V. Redmond. "Understanding Self and Others." Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others. Boston: Allyn and Bacon/Pearson, 2009. 43. Print.
The research article entitled “Social Connection Enables Dehumanization” by Adam Waytz and Nicholas Epley concentrates on the concept of dehumanization and the possible causes of this attribution of sub-human like qualities to human individuals. The article concentrates not on an aggressor versus victim dehumanization as to which the authors reference the picture of two Nazi doctors measuring the vital signs of a Jewish prisoner up to his neck in ice water (Waytz & Epley 2011), but rather concentrate on what causes dehumanization between the aggressor and other social equivalents. The article then hypothesizes that when a social connection is activated, the individual is more likely to dehumanize ones who are socially distant from the individual. This was thought to be true, for individuals who are satisfied with their social groups or sociableness in general are less likely to connect with outside individuals, therefore leading to a dehumanization of those who are outside of their social group.
Ever since the dawn of time, people have been communicating with others around them and with today’s technology people can interconnect with people across the globe. They have access to a wider range of peers and colleagues like no other time period and the possibilities continue to advance these communications. Yet as those in the world continue to make new friends and hear the opinions of more people they slowly develop a dual personality. Though people have always had parallel identities, one for family and friend, and another for acquaints and strangers, as Barbara Mellix points out in her essay. Mellix is a writer and educator who’s essay “From the Outside, In” tells how she grew up learning two identities so she could function in both her personal world with close family and friends, and her world that dealt with others. Now as the world of the others has expanded with the help of technology so has the use of the second identity and it has taken the form of the online identity. People’s second online identity is always on an aggressive defense, paranoid to the point of any wrong thing said or unsaid could lead to a fight, and they tend to only be happy when there is someone to attack. In the physical world where people are surrounded by true friends and people they trust with their emotions and they are more caring and sympathetic of others’ pain. However the online identity poses a threat to the personal identity as people begin to pull traits from one identity to the next. Although not having an online identity Mellix can relate to this with an experience that involved confusing her identities. Mellix describes how when her personalities become mixed, she was puzzled about who she was and who belonged in her personal iden...
Sitting in their favorite coffee shop Rachel, Ross, Joey, Monica, and Phoebe were reminiscing about the old days when they used to live within walking distances from one another. Living in different cities and leading busy lives they had not seen each other in months. Their chatter came to a halt as Chandler pranced in late.
High school or more generally education plays a vital role in society here in the United States. It provides a necessary transition from childhood to adulthood through education and conditioning. Others would argue it serves as a competing group for resources or a center for learning and practicing the implied meanings in society.
When someone goes against something that everyone around expects he or she to act, it’s called norms violations. In other words, that person is doing something which is unacceptable to society or culture. In this sociology breaching experiment, I chose to violate a social norm in public areas – cutting a line without asking, so to observe what people acted and how they responded. I decided to go to Safeway and tried being a line cutter without asking anybody. If they asked me why I did it, I simply replied to them that I did not feel like either wanting to wait or getting in a line. By acknowledging that norms are quite essential in our society, I was aware that our society will have no foundation to stand if there is no norm. Cutting a line while others are queuing is a part of our social routine; even though I was kind of embarrassed, I got a chance to learn different kinds of
The central concepts following social psychology is that which dares to explain what makes people do what they do. Social psychology is the scientific analysis of how someone influences another’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Though considered to be a fairly young science, social psychology has endeavored to examine particular theories, concepts, and phenomenon that has shaped our society. As the centuries roll on, technology alongside social media, has evolved into something more sophisticated and has developed into a mechanism in which to entice and challenge social norms.
Social interactions help create institutions, and therefore shape political attitudes. Social institutions are typically perceived as the basis of social organizations. Organizations bring people together and orchestrate a feeling of connectedness. Media, church, art, educational places and the way in which they are engaged in help shape the political world today. Social interactions allow a foundation for institutions to be built upon, and attitudes to be formed.
It is a common saying that one’s company has a strong impact on one’s personality, for it can have a huge influence over how one thinks, feels, or perhaps behaves. Therefore, the culture that one hangs out in becomes one’s persona. Along those sixteen years, I have bumped into many people, many friends, and many influential personalities, thus I can tell for a fact that I have learned something from each human being. Merely, I have analyzed them later as having a negative or positive impact on me. Taking two cousins an example, I have not interacted with them much due to our geographical location difference, however, the time we spent together was enough to determine the aura they constructed with their presence.
The purpose of this essay is to show the Social Penetration theory is depicted in the “Take a Seat, Make a Friend Video”. Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor coined the term, Social penetration which can be described as a “process of developing intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability”. In this essay, I plan to report how this video was used to depict social penetration, self-disclosure, and the first step in social penetration theory.
As we get older our, views, and perspectives on relationships may change. An explanation for this is that we encounter different situations in different relationships. Some relationships may affect us more than others, and can even change the way we think and view things. However, we would have to evaluate our levels of communication with different people. The social penetration theory helps us to categorize the levels of interpersonal communication we have with others. Based on these levels, we are able to categorize the importance and meaning of the relationship. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the effects of social penetration theory and how it applies to our lives.
To discuss the association, Georg Simmel separates the association into two subcategories, the social forms, and the social types. Social forms are to define the meaning or purpose which lead to different responding while people interact with other individuals. For example, when people said “How’s your work?”, we have to find out this is a just basic greeting for improving the relationship, or the person is asking more detail information about the work. Different social forms will affect the interaction between people. To determine the forms of social interaction is a crucial interacting skill in association with people. On the other hand, the social types are talking about the first impression or the personality of people will decide how people interact with other individuals in society. For instance, Cathy is an outgoing and lay back person, so when people want to make a friend or hang out with her,
In interpersonal communication there are many theories that are similar yet different in many ways. The theories can be combined to describe people and how those people interact and communicate with each other. Many of these theories help explain how people in society form impressions of others, how they maintain these impressions, why people interact with certain people in society, and how people will use these impressions that they have formed later on in life. These theories also help people to better understand themselves, to better understand interpersonal communication, and to better understand people in general. There are two theories in interpersonal communication that, despite their differences, can go hand in hand. The first is interaction adaptation theory and the second is emotional contagion theory. These two theories’ similarities and differences and their relevance to my everyday life will be discussed in this paper. These two theories are very important in understanding how people interact with others and why people do the things they do sometimes.
Psychology is a social science study that covers diverse subject topics and carries out different forms of research in order to understand the development and function of human beings. A scientific study focuses on people's mind and its functions especially those affecting behavior in a particular context. Psychology is divided into different branches, and each branch addresses its own form of content in relation to mental processes and behavior. Social psychology is one of the psychology branches. This subdiscipline focuses on individuals and their thoughts. Experts in this field of study focus on why an individual acts as well as reacts the way he/she does. It studies the interaction between people, but the focus is on one human being rather than many individuals. Scientists as well as psychologists study it in order to understand how individuals influence and communicate with each other. This research paper seeks to address this branch of psychology in detail by explaining its meaning, the relationship between it and other fields of psychology and the differences as well as the similarities it has with these other fields. Further, the paper will also discuss the diverse research methods that are applicable with social psychology to determine how a person affects groups of people and how these groups affect an individual.